An Artist In Residency project with a School

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Second excursion to Brisbane Forest Park

During our second excursion to Brisbane Forest Park and the Walkabout Creek Visitor Centre, the students did more rubbings of leaves and found objects and I took them for another photography/Perspective Map exercise. They were also directly engaged with the parks rangers in a number of different activities, which they subsequently reflected on in their diaries. The activities are described by teacher Katrina Mills below:

“Again it was a wonderful day with lots of discussion, exploring and laughter. The students were kept busy with activities organised by the park rangers.

One activity included playing two outdoor games. In the first game, each child was given an animal; which they then had to try and match with the habitat it would live in. A great game and the children certainly had lots of fun.

The second game was based on a familiar school game “Clumps,” but rather than using random numbers the rangers had placed mats around the area symbolising trees in a forest. The children were then told that they were possums and had to find a ‘tree’ to live in but only two possums per tree. As ‘trees’ were removed (for development, to build homes, etc) the possums were struggling to find enough places to live. The children quickly began to realise how difficult it was for the possums to find suitable homes. This game was an innovative way of demonstrating to the children that human activity can have long term effects on wildlife and highlights that we are all responsible for looking after our environment and the animals we share it with.

Another activity was a ranger talk and an introduction to three animals – a turtle, a lizard and a possum. The final activity was a fantastic puppet show which again emphasised the importance of caring for our parks. A great success!”